Your Morning Phil: Soriano, Conte, Veal

Talking baseball while looking forward to watching Robert Griffin III:

1. Alfonso Soriano has cleared waivers, according to CBSSports.com’s Jon Heyman. Will he be on the move or stay in the middle of the Cubs order into 2013?

History says not to look for a trade. He would probably use his 10/5 rights to block it anyway, as he is surprisingly content on a losing team. But it is time to bite the bullet and figure out how to get him a new address.

Theo Epstein would love to move him but Tom Ricketts knows his fan base is unhappy, and when Ricketts checks out the stats he sees the recent performances by Bryan LaHair and Brett Jackson, which don’t suggest Soriano’s production would easily be replaced.

The easy thing for the Cubs to do is to keep paying Soriano to help them finish in fifth place, ahead of the Astros. But that goes totally against the organizational strategy, which basically boils down to this question – will a player be a Cub when the team is a serious playoff contender?

At 36, Soriano doesn’t have that kind of shelf life. He should be a movable piece. And there may be no better time to move him than right now. He’s hitting .263 and projects to 29 home runs and 99 RBIs. If he has indeed cleared waivers, he’s the most impactful bat on the market.

Soriano said yesterday that he isn’t interested in going to San Francisco, which just lost Melky Cabrera to a 50-game PED suspension. He says it’s too cold at AT&T Park. What would he feel about playing indoors?

No team could use Soriano more than the Rays, who suffered a perfect game at the hands of the Felix Hernandez yesterday. He could also provide a lift for the Orioles and Tigers, and maybe even the Rangers. Michael Young, another 10/5 guy, probably wouldn’t sign off on a trade but if he did he could play third base for the Cubs next year while Josh Vitters gets one more year at Triple-A Iowa.

2. Interesting take by Victor Conte, the founder of BALCO who spent time in prison for distributing steroids, on Cabrera’s PED suspension. Conte believes that players across the board have found ways to beat the drug tests they’re being given by MLB. Conte told USA today that “maybe as much as half of baseball’’ players use performance enhancing drugs. "I'm not going to name names, but I've talked to a lot of top players in Major League Baseball, and they tell me this is what they're doing,’’ Conte told USA Today. “There is rampant use of synthetic testosterone in Major League Baseball." MLB replies that Conte is merely looking for attention. “There is no way that Victor Conte would have information that would allow him to have any basis on that," MLB vice president Rob Manfred said. "He's just making that up. It's a guess. We use the very best, most sophisticated methodologies that are available." But how hard is it to beat the “very best’’ tests? Said Conte: “To circumvent the test is like taking candy from a baby," said Conte. “It's so easy to circumvent. I call it the 'duck-and-dodge' system. The only people that get caught are the dumb, and the dumber."

3. Nice job by Donnie Veal in the eighth inning of the White Sox’s win against the Blue Jays. He pitched around his own error, throwing strikes and keeping the inning under control. Hawk Harrelson and Tom Paciorek raved about him, saying he’s a guy who could be a real weapon against left-handers down the stretch. That may be true but the good thing about Veal’s work at Triple-A is that he handled right-handers as well as lefties. The former Cubs’ prospect actually had a better opponents’ batting average against right-handers (.211) than lefties (.242) at Triple-A Charlotte. He had 49 strikeouts in 35 1-3 innings against right-handers. Those are wicked numbers. Interesting guy, Veal.